


In the Wake of Medusa

by paklalat



Category: Hellblazer, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, London is fucked but what's new, Sirs and Ma'ams Passingly Mentioned, gratuitous use of John Constantine's POV, humans being assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paklalat/pseuds/paklalat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything has gone tits-up and John is right at home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Wake of Medusa

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for beta-ing go to [Beth ](http://bethanyzaiatz.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Assuming most people who read this will be from the Pacific Rim side of the crossover, here's a quick and dirty guide to the Hellblazer and Hellblazer-adjacent characters appearing within; 
> 
> “Chas” Chandler- taxi driver and John's long-suffering best mate
> 
> Geraldine Chandler- his daughter
> 
> Ellie - succubus 
> 
> Gary Lester- Arthur's heir, down-on-his-luck punk rocker and conman, Gary's got green hair and the brains god gave a frog. 
> 
> Peter Wisdom – MI-6 Spook and in-house expert on the occult
> 
> Kit Ryan – John's first True Love, an artist and firm kick up his backside
> 
> 'Z' aka Zatanna Zatara – American Magician of stage and occult
> 
> Timothy Hunter- greatest magician of the age and pain the ass teenager
> 
> Molly – a magician in her own right, fairy-cursed
> 
> “Joey” Chapman- the working class superhero more commonly known as Union Jack, a brave blighter with no powers except being stubborn as hell

Chas Chandler saving the sodding world, who would have thought. 

He's drift compatible to a sodding 't'. Never chased a rabbit in his life. Just a six foot hunk of London concrete, that man. Two partners in as many weeks, the way I hear it. They keep fishing the poor unconscious bastard out of the ocean. Adaptable pilots can't be wasted. Can't get leave for fuck either, 's why I'm hauling this bundle of shit to his old woman. He called in ever favor I owe 'im for this, watchin' out for Renee and Geraldine and the grandkid. 'e acts like I wasn't his only option. Enough of a bastard to know the black markets and enough of a soft touch to let him pull me strings.

Geraldine is dead, me getting' cocky and tryin' ta play savior saw to that. Stabbed to death by a junky in a shelter. Found her starkers, noone can waste clothes these days. Her mouth was a mess of torn flesh, amateur fucks with a crowbar goin' fer her fillings. They gag on their tongues every time they try to eat, now. Should be off in a few days, my bit under the table for Ellie. She's done well for herself. The Gate royally fucked over Hell. Fairy's same as ever, but lords of Hell lost the reputation game in a big way. Me girl's doin' bright things these days, keeps her busy enough to forget about filleting me for a while so I throw some sugar her way when I think about it. 

Me? Drift compatible? You're as nutty as Z. She tried that song and dance after Medusa tore through the fleet and half the island like paper mache. Magicians like her, they're god's gift to the fucking drift. Meticulous mental control, they're the olympic athletes of mental gymnastics. Can guide their co-pilots and keep their own bollocks bottled. The ones that couldn't admit magic can't touch the Kajiu are long dead. Z named her Jaeger after Hunter. Molly and her both. Not that anybody listens, they're the Burning Girls. Lit up their oxygen supply to take out a Kaiju tryin' ta finish of San Fran. They pulled them out of the water too, not a crispy hair on their scalp. 

Me, never been bottled in me life. The attic as a seeping, technicolor yawn of nasty shit. I can't handle me own ghosts, can't expect another poor sod to. 

No, it's not self pity bullshit. The stuff in me head's already driven me off a cliff more times'n I can count. Between forty hallucinated years, a grab bag of demons and a stint in the Ravenscar Institute for the Criminally Insane (back when the electro-shock was free with every beating), well I'd be a fuckin' duck if ya could find enough pieces ta fill a teacup. 

No drifting for me. Least ways, nothin' where _they_ can see _me_. Synchronicity's like the drift. Ya just lay back and let it take you. Let's you watch their minds flick past, do it right and their horrors are slipping through your fingers like water. 

Ireland's free. I think about it a lot. Belfast's a refugee camp I'm not brave enough to look through. End of the world hasn't made me sane, won't have changed Kit's mind either. I hope I haunt her much as she does me, then I kick meself for bein' a prick. 

Tha wee one hits me knees before I hit the stairs. Renee won't be moved from 'er two-up two-down for any bit a swirling chaos. There hasn't been a Kaiju since Medusa, don't need to be. What's not underwater is rubble. Two years on and the water's still full of every manner of shit. All those bits inside of walls that shouldn't be in the air, tile and factory sludge, not to mention the literal shit. Not like the soddin' plumbing works anymore. 

Only good points are that Parliament's flat and Westminster got robbed blind. Gary's King, far as I hear. Dumb shits kiss his feet like the second coming instead of seeing him for the watered down Arthurian bit of spunk 'e is. Most ignore him. The markets run the show, few gangsters 'ere and there, but the most part anybody that can fuck over from the continent to flog a tin of beans. Gary'd do better ta stop with the preachin' and flog his sword for a box a rubbers and some ass wipe. 

Famine's hard, but 'm a survivor. Wee Tricia is too, bony fingers digging inta me thigh while she stands on me shoe, swingin' and begging with every step. I make sure those fingers are fast, on the sly. Renee is immovable, the brat can't afford to be. 

Wet cardboard squelches against scratched formica when I set the box down. Spoils of the con. They've finally got the counter propped up half decent. Cinder blocks don't even have roaches in them yet. I press taffy into her hand, finger over me lips and wink like old times. Renee doesn't look up from 'er sewing, never does when I'm around. Just another bit of shit the flood's brought swirlin' 'round her door. She'll yak on with Joey soon as I'm off. Got him round for a looksie at that roof. She likes him, spit polished gutter boy. Like Chas, but shinier. Ex-Jaeger pilot too. Right classes up the joint, when he remembers not ta talk to his dead partner out loud. 

'e makes me think of Wisdom. Pete died early. K-Day, got called into that mess. Couldn't stand the cunt, he just left me a few things. Fault lines. Plans. He marched off to his death like a good little toy soldier, leaving a dead mess a'monster and seditious little whispers that rusted that tin paint job. 

He knew what it'd take. Monsters of our own, behemoths from every corner of the world. We'll win. Ants are tough sods that way. We'll win and have Jaegers sittin' around. Weapons with no nuclear fallout, that can stomp a city to death inside a day. Death and asset denial in one easy-to-market package. It'll be like tossing a grenade into our little international domestic dispute. 

'm not a man for the drift, but I'm a man for pieces. Holding schizophrenic pieces together with spit and spite until somebody can find the duct tape. 

They'll be a second wave of extinction, most of the poor bastards that sink down here, this level of hell where 'm useful, they die. 

Enough survive. Enough will. I hold it together, pluggin' the cracks with salt water taffy until they remember how to find their asses with one hand and no map.


End file.
